Brazil based artist Marciano Palácio's project was born from his desire to represent his favorite pop culture heroines on their daily life. Strong but real, like women are. With all the progress of the "girl power" idea, he also wanted to represent them "out of the box".

I mean, out the way they're generally represented by men (submissive poses, etc). The name break time is a joke (break in this case is used with the sense of "pause" but on their universe can also means a lot of trouble, so I thought that would be a good name).
-Marciano Palácio

Basically, I looked for a lot of pose/photo references on internet, to find exactly what was on my mind (based on the personality of the characters that I was intended to represent), and then I started to sketch a lot mixing references and finding the best way to solve the pose and design problems.
-Marciano Palácio

Like I mentioned before, my inspiration was the will of represent these strong and powerful women of pop culture in a way more "people like us". So, this way, I thought that real women could be identified with them, and men could realize that is also possible to represent them in a way not sexist.
-Marciano Palácio

I think that my style is real mix from everything that I love and learned during my whole life: disney, old cartoons, comic books. Some of my mainly all time and recent inspirations are: Mary Blair, Milt Kahl, Brittney Lee, Steve Thompson, Dylan Booner and David Pavon. But my references are always increasing and changing.
-Marciano Palácio

My advice is train a lot! dedicate your time to achieve your goals. Draw what you want to and also what you don't want to. Full yourself with good references, study other artists and try to catch what you most love about them. And remember that art is a constant learning, listen to people with more experience than you and practice as much as you can!
-Marciano Palácio

About Marciano Palácio

Marciano Palácio is a 22-year-old Brazilian freelance illustrator and self-taught artist. He's been working as a professional illustrator for the past 2 years. You can see more of his works on Behance, Facebook or Instagram.